Reclaimed Bronze
by Dust2Dust17
Summary: Jaune receives an olive branch from the last person of Team CRDL he'd expect. Part of my one shot challenge: 80-Remorse.


"...And that, class, is how the Mistralian Armed Forces were able to defeat a seemingly impossible adversary leading Atlas' strongest legions. Any questions?" Doctor Oobleck paused as he looked across the room, taking a sip from his coffee cup and waiting for a hand to be raised with a query following it. He got his wish answered as one of his personal favorite students raised a hand. "Yes, Mister Arc?"

"Um, yes, could you go back to a part of the lecture I missed? I couldn't keep up in my notes." he requested.

"Ah, of course! I apologize if I went too fast for you to keep up with." the professor apologized, a collective roll of eyes occuring across the room. "Where did you fall behind?"

"Uh...after we handed in our homework from last night?" Jaune remembered.

"Mister Arc, that was at the beginning of class." his teacher deadpanned. "I'd love to if we weren't behind schedule. We need to set up pairings for your group projects." A chorus of groans filled the room. "I've also set up the pairings myself for you all." More groans. "Enough of that! This is also a test for your ability to work with people you're not used to working with . This can prepare you for fieldwork in more ways than one. Now, you all have some time to begin work, so I expect you to get your plan for this assignment worked out and, at the very least, begun the brainstorming process. The groups will be as follows: Miss Rose and Miss Nikos..."

"Alright!" Ruby lightly cheered as Pyrrha looked back with a smile on her face to the team leader of RWBY.

"...Mister Ren and Miss Belladonna..."

Both parties gave each other an emotionless nod as they returned to their books.

"...Mister Thrush and Miss Valkyrie..."

Russel gulped as he looked across the room to find the hammer-wielder cracking her knuckles.

"...Mister Winchester and Mister Lark..."

Cardin and Sky exchanged a high five as they pulled out their textbooks.

"...Miss Schnee and Mister Wukong..."

Sun and Weiss let out a shared facepalm as they got the news they were working together.

"...Mister Vasillas and Miss Xiao Long..."

The two seemed to give varied degrees of approval.  
"...And Mister Arc and Mister Bronzewing."

Jaune looked across the aisle at the member of Team CRDL he was paired with. They both had a feeling this wasn't going to go the way they wanted it to go, especially since Nora already had Russel in a headlock and began beating him with a textbook. The teacher had already turned his back, but Jaune could swear he was shaking his head while he pinched the bridge of his nose.

Dove finally made his way over as others formed their groups, taking a seat next to Jaune where Pyrrha once sat. She had already taken a seat next to Ruby. "So..." he started out, placing his textbook on the desk in front of them.

"Yeah..."Jaune replied, flipping through his absentmindedly. The last thing he was ready to deal with was someone who was just going to heckle him throughout the duration they'd be working together. "Look, I just want to get through this with as little dealing with you as possible, alright?" he asked.

"You gonna be a grump throughout this whole thing?" Dove asked, not getting a response from his assigned partner. "This is about my team and I, isn't it?"

"What gave you that idea?" Jaune asked, sarcasm thick as clam chowder in his voice.

Dove gave an exasperated sigh. "Jaune, listen. I doubt you'll believe me, but the last thing I wanted to do when I came to Beacon was become a bully." he admitted.

"Well, you fell off that path somewhere along the line." Jaune commented in an uncharacteristically harsh tone. "You guys practically turned me into your personal slave, tried to make me hurt my friends, and nearly beat me to death for refusing to throw a wasp nest at them. Forgive me if I don't accept whatever apology you have in store."

"That was all Cardin!" Dove said, in a low enough tone to not cause a scene but enough to emphasize his point. "Do any of us look like we're the tough ones in the group?"

"Well, Sky's pretty big, and Russel's appearance kinda makes you think so..."

"No,not the atlas! AH, MY ARM!" Russel's voice floated over as they heard the thump of a falling heavy textbook and a cracking of bones from Nora's seat next to the dagger wielder.

"Case in point, we're not all that cracked up to be. I mean, Cardin knocked me, his own teammate, out cold fighting Pyrrha in Goodwich's class the other day." Dove reminded. Jaune remembered it well. Cardin was thrown back after being countered by the spartan, and sent Dove, standing behind him, reeling and out of commission on his mace's back swing.

"That still doesn't change the fact you went along with the hazing." the JNPR team leader noted.

"I know." Dove nodded dejectedly. "Maybe it was because I was a little like you back at Signal: not really good at fighting, bullied constantly for being the weaker and smarter guy, and not to mention teased for being the short fat guy. Maybe it was because I wanted to show the others on my team I can be a badass too. Either way, I just want you to know I feel really bad about what I did."

Jaune mulled over the words of his former tormentor. "You were like me at one point?" he asked.

"Well, the old you. The pushover who probably couldn't kill a Beowulf pup by itself." Dove admitted. "You improved alot since the field trip to Forever Fall. You were really able to kill that Ursa that attacked Cardin in just one strike? Nobody ever expected you to be able to do something like that with a simple sword like yours."

The mopheaded blonde felt a twinge of bashfulness at the reminder of his triumph over that Grimm. "Thanks...I guess I didn't know my own potential." he finally said. Those words, being said to a member of Tea, CRDL, branded jerks to the entirety of their class, tasted very odd coming out of his mouth. "You really feel that much remorse for what you did, huh?" A nod came from the armored swordsman to his side. "Well, I guess I can forgive you. Cardin did seem to be the ringleader anyhow."

Dove looked up in surprise, not expecting his apology to be taken so easily. "Wow...Thanks, man. I don't know what to say." Dove trailed off.

"Don't worry about it." Jaune smirked. "I'm kind of a forgiving kind of person anyway. So, what topic should we do this thing on?"

They then shifted gears towards the task assigned to them at hand, spending the rest of the class working hard on the preparations until they were dismissed by the bell and a farewell from their history professor. As they left, Cardin and Sky helped Russel reset his dislocated elbow get slingshotted back into place while Dove gathered his belongings and joined them.

"So, did your partnership with Jauney-Boy go better than Russ's here with Nora?" Cardin asked the swordsman.

"I'd imagine so." Dove nodded. "He's actually a nice guy if you don't mess with him the whole time, Cardin." he commented as Jaune left behind him.

"We're still on to meet up to start typing the essay in the library after dinner, right?" he asked Dove as he passed.

"I'll message you after our next class, and let you know." he replied, getting a nod back as Jaune rejoined his team.

"How'd it go? Pyrrha asked as her team leader rejoined them.

"Am I gonna have to break his arms too?" Nora asked, recracking her knuckles.

"No, don't." Jaune pleaded with his ginger teammate. "Dove was actually..pretty cool during the time we were partnered up. He even apologized for bullying me."

"Really? Maybe he's turning over a new leaf." Pyrrha hypothesized.

"Maybe. Either way, he and I are cool now. Not sure about the rest of CRDL yet, but I'll take it for now." Jaune shrugged.

"Good to hear." Ren noted as the team went off to their next class, leaving CRDL as the only remaining students.

"Huh, nice new friend you got there, Dove." Sky commented.

"I just wish I could say the same for Russel." Dove chuckled, noting the bruises all over his mohawked partner, which elicited laughter from his other two teammates.

"Fuck you guys." Russel grumbled as he started for the exit, his team following suit.


End file.
